DAY 1: Clinics overview

CLINIC 1

Prevention of violence in the education sector

Host organisation: GIZ – Violence and Crime Prevention Programme

Young people play an essential role in the future of the country. They can become change agents who positively contribute to reducing violence in schools when they are allowed to participate in activities and projects that enable them to become positive role models.

This session looks at interventions that seek to promote schools as safe environments and aim to work with the broader school community (management, teachers, parents, students), furthering a culture of non-violence. They also work to introduce the prevention of gender-based violence into the curriculum and/or extracurricular education.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) will present the manual Opening Our Eyes. Addressing Gender Based Violence in South African Schools for preventing gender-based violence in schools. GIZ will present on “Building resilience in young people to be change agents for violence prevention in schools”. In addition, interventions for GBV prevention in schools in Port Elizabeth and Gauteng will be presented by GIZ in this session.

CLINIC 2

Role of the media and creative industries in preventing gender-based violence – challenging social norms and harmful stereotypes

Host organisation: UN Women

This clinic is aimed at sharing and discussing research insights, ideas and approaches on how the media and creative industries can play a role in preventing gender-based violence and femicide through combating harmful stereotypes and challenging negative social norms.

Presentations will be followed by a question and answer session and then a “World Café”-style roundtable discussion hosted by Gail Smith, senior manager of strategic integration at Soul City; Anne Githuku-Shongwe, representative for UN Women’s South Africa Multi-Country Office; and Maximilian Vogt, technical adviser to the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit Partners for Prevention programme.

CLINIC 3

Working with religious and traditional leaders in programmes to prevent violence against women and girls

Host organisation: Trócaire

This session aims to demonstrate the importance of meaningfully engaging with religious and traditional leaders in preventing violence against women and girls in Southern Africa, and different ways of doing this.

The session will bring together religious and traditional leaders, community activists, programme managers and researchers from various gender-based violence prevention programmes in Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe.

Different methodologies used in preventing violence against women and girls – such as national advocacy campaigns, influencing legislation and policy, and behaviour change work – will be shared. Existing evidence and emerging research findings on what is working when involving religious and traditional leaders in preventing violence against women and children in Southern Africa will also be shared.

The session will feature the following presentations:

Partnerships for Prevention of Violence Against Women and Girls in Southern Africa (PfP): “Religious and traditional actors preventing violence against women and girls”
Trócaire Malawi and partners: “Working with religious and traditional leaders in feminist-informed programming (SASA!Faith) to address the root causes of violence against women and girls in Malawi”
Trócaire Zimbabwe and partners: “Working with Christian leaders to ‘Speak Out’ and address sexual and genderbased violence in faith spaces”

A “World Café”-style session will follow the presentations, discussing the topics raised in greater depth.

CLINIC 4

Economic empowerment combined with gender transformative Approaches

Host organisation: South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC)

This session is aimed at understanding the relationship between poverty, gender inequalities and violence perpetrated by intimate partners. It will seek interventions that work to diminish the incidence of this type of violence, and to understand the challenges related to implementing and expanding these actions.

This presentation and the discussion that follows will be led by Dr Andrew Gibbs, a senior specialist scientist at the SAMRC’s Gender and Health Research Unit and an Honorary Research Fellow at the Health Economics and HIV/Aids Research Division at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Researcher Nomhle Khoza, a doctoral fellow at the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute will present research on using conditional cash transfers to keep girls in school, and Project Empower director Laura Washington will speak about the Stepping Stones and Creating Futures trial, a programme aimed at decreasing the rate of intimate partner violence in urban informal settlements in South Africa.

After the presentations, the clinic will split into two groups to cover:

What needs to be considered when replicating or upscaling economic- and gender-transformative programmes?
What needs to be done to better translate evidence into policy and practice with regards to economic- and gender-transformative programmes?

These discussions will be followed by a feedback session that will end the clinic.

CLINIC 5

Contextualisation of prevention interventions: adaptation of interventions to different contexts and populations

Host organisation: South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC)

This session will be facilitated by Prof Rachel Jewkes, executive scientist for research strategy: office of the president of the South African Medical Research Council. Afterwards questions will be taken from the floor.

The discussion will explore why it is important to contextually adapt interventions, how to do this and what the pitfalls are if adaptation is not well implemented. The discussion will also look at how to develop a theory of change for each intervention within a new setting and how it can be tested to see if it works. Prof Jewkes will ask for examples of well adapted programmes and any advice that can be offered. Best practices examples will also be shared by Partnerships for Prevention programme manager, Dr Alexander Erich.

CLINIC 6

Intersectionality: violence against women and girls prevention interventions and HIV prevention, women and girls living with disabilities, sexual diversity, internally displaced persons and others

Host organisation: Raising Voices (Uganda)

This clinic aims to:

Improve understanding of the term “intersectionality” and its application to Raising Voices’ work on preventing violence against women and girls
Learn about diverse approaches to violence against women and girls prevention
Apply key, evidence-based principles to our work in relation to intersectionality

The session will take the form of presentations and interactive activities. It will include a presentation from LGBTIQ+ activists from South Africa. In addition the clinic will hear from Malebogo Molefhe, a disability rights activist from Botswana.

CLINIC 7

Gender-transformative interventions at a community level – engaging men and boys

Host organisation: Sonke Gender Justice

International evidence shows that well-implemented work with men and boys can effectively address issues of gender inequality.

This clinic will feature several presentations, by:

Sonke Gender Justice and the MenEngage Africa secretariat (South Africa)
Shadrack Mutembei, country director: Help Lesotho (Lesotho)
Desmond Lunga, programme coordinator: Men & Boys for Gender Equality (Botswana)

These will be followed by a question and answer session.

CLINIC 8

Southern African Development Community (SADC) response to gender-based violence: showcasing good practices from member states

Host organisation: SADC

This session’s primary objectives are to make the SADC Gender-based Violence Strategy visible to the SADC’s partners and stakeholders, and to promote the strategy’s implementation by all SADC member states – and other stakeholders – by showcasing good practices in preventing and responding to gender-based violence from Botswana, Lesotho, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe.

The presentations will take the form of information banners, a video presentation and plenary discussions.